Do not conduct your questioning unfairly. It is very unreasonable that one who professes a concern for virtue should be constantly guilty of unfairness in argument. Unfairness here consists in not observing the distinction between a debate and a conversation. A debate need not be taken seriously and one may trip up an opponent to the best of one's power, but a conversation should be taken in earnest; one should help out the other party and bring home to him only those slips and fallacies that is due to himself or to his earlier instructors. If you follow this rule, your associates will lay the blame for their confusions and perplexities on themselves and not on you; they will like you and court your society, and disgusted with themselves, will turn to philosophy, hoping to escape from their former selves and become different men.1

To enter into dialogue, we, too, must be ready to become different men, just as we must be ready to assist those with whom we engage in dialogue to become different men.

If civilizations are to enter into dialogue, it would seem, by analogy, that they should be ready to escape from their former selves and become different civilizations. But is this analogy cogent? I think it is, but I think it is also beneficial to reflect on the metaphor of civilizations in dialogue.

Samuel Huntington2 offers a political analysis of the contemporary world as divided into several civilizations with different religions, histories, identities and values. He describes the relations among these cultural groups as the clash of civilizations because the differences in values and other cultural factors give rise to conflict.
He also sees Islamic civilization as the main adversary of the modern liberal West. He suggests that policy makers in the US should make a more concerted effort to consciously defend and promote Western civilization.

Huntington's book has attracted much attention and provoked considerable criticism, as well. His division of the civilizations has been criticized as being somewhat arbitrary. His analysis has also invited the accusation that he is culturally, if not racially, prejudiced.

His view of history has been attacked as inaccurate. Finally, his policy suggestions have been criticized as against US national interests. My concern is not with the details of Huntington's views or whether he or his critics are in the right about any particular point of issue.

One of the most interesting responses to the idea of a 'clash of civilizations' has been articulated by the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Sayyid Muhammad Khatemi, who in his address to the 53rd General Assembly of the United Nations, 21 September 1998, reiterated his call for a 'dialogue among civilizations' and proposed that the year 2001 be designated as 'the year of dialogue among civilizations'.

Although the expression 'clash of civilizations' and 'dialogue among civilizations' seems naturally enough opposed, so that the suggestion of President Khatemi appears to be a humane alternative to the clash, the ideas are really so different that they belong in different categories.

The basic idea of the “clash of civilizations” is an explanation for existing conflicts. It is a piece of political analysis.

The idea of a dialogue among civilizations, on the other hand, is not an analysis at all; rather it is a proposal, in the form of a metaphor, for a way in which we might encounter others.

It is as if Machiavelli were answered by Hafiz. One speaks of Realpolitik and the other of love ('ishq). If President Khatemi's proposal is to be any more than a lovely thought, we have to set about trying to understand what is meant by the metaphor.

Civilizations have neither tongues nor ears. They cannot listen and they cannot speak. People speak and listen and engage in conversations; but civilizations are abstract entities posited by historians and political theorists.

Therefore, dialogue among civilizations is impossible. Such is the sort of response a very literally minded person might give to the proposal of a dialogue among civilizations. Literally speaking, of course, the literalist is right.

So, if we are to make any sense out of the idea of a dialogue among civilizations we have to find some way to cash out the metaphor. But there are obstacles to dialogue among civilizations beyond the fact that civilizations lack the appropriate body parts, and these must also be considered as we reflect on how to understand the idea of a dialogue among civilizations.

To speak of dialogue is to speak of a means by which the gap between other and self may be bridged. If the dialogue is to be effective for the sort of transformation of which Plato speaks, it may be a useful reminder to think of bridging the gap from other to self instead of the more common phrase, 'self and other', because dialogue is not a means to impose ourselves on others, but to welcome them.

Dialogue requires invitation, and for Muslims there is more than sufficient instruction in Islam about the proper behavior (adab) involved in offering an invitation and hosting guests.

In dialogue, however, we are both hosts and guests. The other invites us to partake in the banquet of one’s own ideas, values and aspirations, and we invite the stranger to ours. When we listen, we must observe the manners of the guest, and when we speak, the manners of the host.

This is a very delicate business, for if good manners are breached by either participant, dialogue breaks down.

If dialogue as such is difficult between two persons, the difficulties are multiplied when we try to imagine a dialogue among civilizations. To direct attention to another civilization is to consider the many individual persons of that civilization as a mass in which particular nuances are missed and a common set of socially determined values and attitudes are lumped together.

The alien civilization resists our attempts to engage it in dialogue, because it is incapable of respecting the rules of proper behavior. It becomes what Robert Grudin calls 'The Mass Other':

“The Mass Other” becomes an incorporated giant, firm in its tastes and unified in its intentions. To this extent, “The Mass Other” has identity without soul, dominion without compassion.

It has dominion because it is a consolidation of social power; it has no sympathy for others because it has no awareness of itself. It is a monster, a cold smug staring face, the brazen image of a self­ protective system.

This image speaks but does not listen. Our relationship to it is completely no dialogic, because its power lies in the denial of dialogue. It harangues us with official discourse but shrinks and vanishes at the threat of response.3

In order for dialogue to take place, we will need to find another other.

In a metaphorical sense, all of the products of a civilization may be considered its speech. Civilizations speak through their arts and technologies, through their literature and law, and through the histories of their ideas.

Even if civilizations have no minds with which to think, the thoughts arising among the people of a civilization and reflected in their labor and its products may be attributed to the civilization itself.
So, there is a sense, after all, in which civilizations do have tongues, for as the tongue of a man shows what he thinks, so too, the products of a civilization reflect its thoughts.

If there is to be dialogue among civilizations, however, it is not enough for them to speak. They must also listen. One person shows that he has listened to another when the speech of the other elicits a reaction, in deeds or in words.

If civilizations speak through their products, they may be said to listen to another civilization when the products of the other elicit a reaction, in historical events or in its own products. How can the products of one civilization elicit a reaction in another? Certainly, this is a constant occurrence.

Art critics point out how the arts and architecture of one culture often influence those of another. Often it takes ages before the products of a culture may be seen to influence those of another, as the styles of an ancient civilization become fashionable in a modern one.

There are also cases of fairly rapid exchange, as Japanese technology imitated that of the West, and was soon itself emulated in European and American factories. Through imitation and modification, through montage and even outright purchase, people, cultures, nations and civilizations show that they are listening to one another.

If the products of a civilization are its speech, and its listening is the reflection in those products of the products of others, it would seem that the two essential elements for dialogue, speaking and listening, are present in the metaphorical sense sketched, in civilizations.

Here, we are using anthropological analogies to speak of dialogue among civilizations. Let's call this interpretation of dialogue among civilizations the anthropological analogy interpretation.

The elements we have identified in the anthropological analogy interpretation are not sufficient for dialogue among civilizations, for true dialogue requires more than mere speaking and listening. Even if civilizations can be brought by metaphor to talk with one another, they cannot be disabused of their lack of manners.

Dialogue requires observation of manners indicating a readiness to enter the world of the alien and genuinely welcoming intentions. Civilizations may produce and imitate, export and import, but they do not open their hearts in dialogue.

Even if the metaphor discussed above is judged inadequate for understanding the idea of a dialogue among civilizations, this is no reason to give up on the idea altogether. Perhaps what is needed is a change in the figure of speech.

Rhetoricians use the term synecdoche for the trope in which a part or individual represents the whole or type, as well as the reverse. So, we might say that a dialogue among civilizations takes place when individuals belonging to different civilizations engage in dialogue.

Of course, more than this is needed if we are to achieve what is meant by a dialogue of civilizations. Not every dialogue among members of different civilizations will count as a dialogue among civilizations. If a surgeon from China discusses surgical technique with a surgeon from Tunis, the dialogue may take place entirely within the framework of Western medicine.

In order for a dialogue among individuals to count as a dialogue among civilizations, the individuals must be taken to represent different civilizations. We could say that there was a dialogue among nations when the representatives of those nations discuss a topic, for example, in the meetings of the Islamic Conference Organization. We could say that there was a dialogue among religions when the leaders of various religious sects convened, e.g., the Pope and the Dalai Lama.

So, we can say that abstract social entities may engage in dialogue with one another when they have recognized leaders who represent them.

We might call the interpretation of dialogue among civilizations as dialogue among the representatives of civilizations the representational model of dialogue among civilizations. The main problem with this interpretation is that civilizations are not organizations with official representatives and leaders.

Who could be said to represent Western civilization? Is it the president of the European Union? Who represents Chinese civilization? Certainly, not the current head of the Communist Party there. Even if there were free and fair elections held in the lands in which the various civilizations advance and decline, it is doubtful whether true representatives of those civilizations would be elected.

The people who would be elected most likely would be political leaders, but to represent a civilization it is not enough to be a shrewd politician or very popular among the people of that civilization.

A civilization is not a political district. There is a difference between the Chinese nation and Chinese civilization. In its primary meaning, a civilization is not a community or collection of individuals, but rather it is a highly advanced state of human society.

It seems, however, that the sense in which Prof. Huntington and President Khatemi use the term is that according to which a civilization is considered to consist of those people who have achieved such an advanced state of human society.

Nevertheless, to represent the people as members of a civilization is not the same as representing them politically, for to represent a civilization, one must be able to represent the ideas, artistic tastes, spiritual values, cultural attitudes, technology and literature of that civilization.

One must be a historian of one's civilization to represent it, but being a historian is not enough. One should also be an anthropologist, sociologist, philosopher, linguist, political scientist, architect, literary critic, film critic, and much more. It is obvious that it is therefore impossible for any one person to represent a civilization.

Perhaps the representational model of dialogue among civilizations can still be salvaged in order to understand very limited forms of dialogue, dialogue among aspects of civilizations, but for anyone to imagine himself as the representative of a civilization would seem to require hubris of tremendous enormity, and perhaps worse.

The very idea that a person could represent a civilization would seem to require identification with one's civilization that would seem to require something bordering on a type of hysteria usually associated with tribal loyalties.

To the long list of politically incorrect attitudes including racism, nationalism and sexism, one might as well add civilizationism. A civilizationist’s attitude is incompatible with the self-transformative aims of dialogue.

When one imagines oneself as the representation of a civilization in dialogue with the representatives of other civilizations, one will be on the defense. Once one stops, defending one's civilization, doubts arise as to whether one is really representing one's civilization. There can be no meaningful dialogue when the participants are busy taking up defensive postures.

At the same time that those who imagine themselves to be the representatives of their civilizations confront one another, they imagine the other to fit into the stereotype of “The Mass Other”, described by Grudin above. It is possible that some sort of polemic will ensue, but under these circumstances there can be no real dialogue.

The solution to the problem of how to understand dialogue among civilizations I would like to suggest draws upon elements of both the anthropological analogy model and the representational model.

The main problem with the anthropological analogy model was that civilizations are not intentional beings capable of engaging in real dialogue. Recognition of this flaw motivated the idea of finding real human beings to represent civilizations.

The two main problems of the representational model, however, are (1) particular individuals are not capable of representing the vastly various aspects of civilizations, and (2) to imagine oneself the representative of a civilization seems to require an arrogance inconsistent with dialogue.

One solution to the problem would be to allow that civilizations may enter into dialogue with one another through the dialogues among individuals of different civilizations, but not where these individuals fancy themselves to be the representatives of their civilizations, rather, their dialogues may be seen as expressing the dialogue of civilizations, just as war among the nations of different civilizations may be said to express the clash of civilizations.

As in the representational metaphor, we may speak of individuals as representing their civilizations, not in the sense that any individual has the right or ability to speak for a civilization, but in the sense that a civilization may speak through the words of individuals because each person is a product of his civilization.

Persons may become vehicles for the dialogue among civilizations because persons are products of their civilizations. As in the anthropomorphic analogy, we may imagine civilizations to speak through their products, but for dialogue to take place it is only the person as product who can become the instrument of dialogue among civilizations.

When we think of dialogue among civilizations in the manner suggested above, two important complications must be kept in mind. First, in the modern world, people are not the products of a single civilization, nor is it desirable that they should be.

Second, the dialogue among civilizations that takes place through dialogues among persons of different civilizations is not only made up of dialogues among many different thinkers discussing a wide variety of topics, it is also a dialogue that is extended in time over generations.

It is a piecemeal process of relatively limited conversations that take the shape of a dialogue among civilizations only when seen from a distance.

Consider the second point first. Alasdair MacIntyre writes:

Conversations are extended in time. At later points someone may always refer back to some earlier point with a variety of purposes: to evaluate what has only emerged cumulatively, to examine the consistency or inconsistency of what has been said, to put an old point in a new light or vice versa. Crucial to polemical conversations therefore is how the different and disagreeing participants understand the identity and continuity of those with whom they speak, of how each stands in relation to his or her past and future utterances in what he or she says or writes now. Underlying the conflicts of polemical conversations are the rival participants' presuppositions about continuing personal identity through time. 4

MacIntyre continues with a discussion of personal identity in Aristotelian/Augustinian traditions.

First, part of being a single person throughout one's physical life is having one and the same body. Second, part of my identity derives from my accountability before the communities of which I am a member for my actions, attitudes, statements and beliefs.

An important psychological factor in understanding oneself to be a Muslim, for example, is due to the fact that one's actions, attitudes, statements and beliefs are considered by one to be liable to questioning by other Muslims. For the Muslim, of course, (as well as for the Augustinian) much more important is answerability before God, but this lesser form of liability among community members plays an important role in religious as well as non-religious communities.

The third point MacIntyre makes is also not foreign to Islamic thought: life is seen as a quest whose object is the discovery of the truth, including the truth about one's life as a whole. This quest is also considered an indispensable element in a good life. MacIntyre admits that this conception of personal identity is not unique to Thomism, but is a common understanding in traditional societies.

To belong to a civilization is to see one's own personal identity as a part of the identity of one's civilization. The civilization has a physical existence in the temporally overlapping corporeal lives of its members.

The civilization is bound together by common themes found in the understanding of its members about how they are to justify their actions, attitudes, statements and beliefs to one another. Thirdly, the life of a civilization may also be seen as a quest or journey (sayr) through history in which the individual quests of its members are crucial.

With regard to the quest to discover the truth, MacIntyre asks:

Through what form of social engagement and learning can the errors which may obstruct such discovery be brought to light? The first and basic answers to these questions are those proposed by Socrates. It is only insofar as someone satisfies the conditions for rendering him or herself vulnerable to dialectical refutation that that person can come to know whether and what he or she knows. It is only by belonging to a community systematically engaged in a dialectical enterprise in which the standards are sovereign over the contending parties that one can begin to learn the truth, by first learning the truth about one's own error, not error from this or that point of view but error as such, the shadow cast by truth as such: contradiction in respect of utterance about the virtues.5

Much of this may be repeated with regard to dialogue among civilizations. The quest for truth and self-transcendence found in Plato's discussion of dialogue suggests that a person, as a bearer of a civilization, must engage in the dialogue among civilizations in order to discover the truth about himself as a member of that civilization with which he identifies. It is through participation in dialogue that one's errors may come to light.

To engage in dialogue one becomes accountable to the other. This reaches a rather extreme form in dialogue among civilizations, for one becomes accountable to another who is seen as representing attitudes, values and traditions strange and alien from one's own.

To be accountable in a dialogue of civilizations is to be open to having to give an account of what one has either said or done, or of the ideas and practices of the civilization with which one identifies, and then to be open to having to amplify, explain, defend, and if necessary, either modify or abandon that account, and in this latter case to begin the work of supplying a new one in terms the alien can understand, or be taught to understand.6

As dialogue unfolds, its participants must be ready to abandon the account of some particular topic they had associated with the civilization they represent, and accept the superiority of the account given by representatives of another civilization.

When the dialogue continues, the participants will no longer be pure representatives of their own civilizations. In fact, the idea that there are any representatives of a single civilization, a single unspoiled tradition, ought to be recognized as a potentially dangerous myth in the modern world because it hinders genuine dialogue, promotes giving excuses for the deficiencies in our own traditions, and blinds one to the vision of other civilizations as potential sources for the enrichment of one's own civilization.

This is especially important for Muslims. Islam came to place dedication to the Truth (haqq) above tribal loyalties. We are not to continue in established ways simply because we found our fathers doing so.

Like Christian tradition, Muslim traditions are never pure; they always arise from an attempt to reform given cultures through the teachings of God's appointed Messenger (SAW).

Similar points are made by the Christian theologian Miroslav volf about Christianity.7 While MacIntyre emphasizes the importance of tradition, Volf observes that Christianity does not call mankind to any particular civilization or tradition, but to a series of interrelated basic commitments-beliefs and practices.

These commitments can be developed into traditions, cultures and perhaps even civilizations, as they interact with and reform the societies in which these commitments are made. However, at every step of the way, we can ask whether what has been wrought cannot be brought into better accord with the faith. Much the same could be said with regard to Islam.

Our understanding of the dynamics of dialogue among civilizations will be enhanced through reflection on the differences expressed by Volf and MacIntyre. MacIntyre holds that a coherent moral stand, as well as coherent standards of reason, can only be achieved within a tradition.

There is no neutral ground from which we can issue judgments about moral worth or rational acceptability. MacIntyre expresses grave doubts about the direction of modern society which seems to have cut itself off from the traditions which have the most to offer it.

MacIntyre's discussions of the importance of tradition are relevant to our considerations of dialogue among civilizations because civilization itself is a social embodiment of one or more traditions.

Dialogue among civilizations is only possible when those who participate in the dialogue understand their own identities and those of their civilizations in relation to the traditions from which they emerge in history.

The emphasis MacIntyre places on tradition leads to an assumption that conversation with others will be polemical. We engage in conversation in order to test our own views against those of others. The rivals whom MacIntyre would speak are not alien civilizations, but the modernists and postmodernists of Western civilization.

The complaint raised against MacIntyre by Volf is that the glorification of tradition is both unrealistic and harmful. It is unrealistic because our cultures and traditions "are not integrated wholes and cannot be made to be such in contemporary societies... precisely, because we cannot avoid living in overlapping and rapidly changing social spaces.

In contemporary societies it is impossible to pursue a coherent system of goods. Instead, we must rest satisfied with holding onto basic commitments."8 The ideal of the single coherent tradition is harmful, according to Volf, because it would seem to require "an anti-modern and anti-pluralistic social revolution." Volf comments that such a revolution would most certainly not 'pay off'.

MacIntyre, however, agrees with Volf that traditions are hybrid, and he has explicitly renounced the communitarian politics against which Volf warns. Volf thinks that MacIntyre must want to eliminate the impurity, the hybridity, of traditions in order to make them into the sort of coherent systems from which moral and rational evaluations can be issued.

Against MacIntyre, however, I have argued that a Christian theologian will not necessarily want to get rid of the "hybridity"- she will be much more interested in affirming basic Christian commitments in culturally situated ways than in forging coherent traditions and we will suspect that hybrid traditions will be more open than coherent traditions not only to be shaped by these commitments but also to be enriched by each other.9

MacIntyre would no doubt respond that he has no aspiration to the elimination of hybridity from traditions. Indeed, the tradition of which he is most fond, the Thomistic, is admittedly a hybrid of Christian and Aristotelian thought, with strong influences traceable to Muslim thought.

Moreover, we should expect that MacIntyre would argue that the 'basic commitments' Volf finds at the essence of Christianity will mean different things to different people depending upon the traditions of thought upon which they draw to interpret them.

This debate enhances our understanding of the dynamics of the dialogue among civilizations because of the importance of hybridity and tradition. We cannot understand ourselves or our civilizations without understanding the traditions that inform them.

If we are to hope to understand other persons or civilizations, we must inquire into the traditions of the other, as well. This is what we learn from MacIntyre. What Volf rightly emphasizes, however, is that in order to understand ourselves, our civilizations, our traditions, other persons, other civilizations and other traditions, we have to recognize that none of them are pure, in the sense that none of them represents a single line of thought.

All are syntheses of various streams of thought and culture. Yet, it is not mere chaos. There are main streams and there are secondary influences. Within the mix it is still possible to distinguish characteristic features of cultures, civilizations and traditions. Our hybrid thoughts and practices express themselves in ways more or less typical of a tradition or culture or civilization, with strands woven in from other sources.

As we step back and look at our conversations we may be able to recognize patterns in which participants from different civilizations utilize the difference in perspective to which they are exposed to transcend themselves in true dialogue.

The role of Islam in the dialogue among civilizations is rather complicated. Perhaps more than the sources of any other religion, the sources of Islam, the Qur'an and Sunnah, address themselves to others. Usually the other is addressed in the form of an invitation to Islam, and for various reasons, this may seem threatening to the outsider.

Nevertheless, in its essence the invitation can be read as the initiation of dialogue. The Muslim ummah calls on others to join it, and it thereby opens itself to the transformation of self brought on by the inclusion of other peoples, other ways of thinking and living. The ummah has undergone major historical transformations as a result of its incorporation of non-Arab peoples.

At the same time, the invitation beckons the other to a self transformation as well. Even if the other ultimately refuses to accept Islam, the invitation sets up the fundamental grounds for dialogue. But Islam itself is not a civilization. Although Islam is a religion, there is the question of Islamic civilization. There is a nice discussion of this question in the introduction to Marshall Hodgson's The venture of Islam:

I plead that it has been all too common, in modern scholarship, to use the terms 'Islam' and 'Islamic' too casually both for what we may call religion and for the overall society and culture associated historically with the religion.

I grant that it is not possible nor, perhaps, even desirable to draw too sharp a line here, for (and not only in Islam) to separate out religion from the rest of life is partly to falsify it. Nevertheless, the society and culture called 'Islamic' in the second sense are not necessarily 'Islamic' in the first. Not only have the groups of people involved in the two cases not always been co-extensive (the culture has not been simply a 'Muslim culture', a culture of Muslims)-much of what even Muslims have done as a part of the 'Islamic' civilization can only be characterized as 'un-Islamic' in the first, religious sense of the word.

One can speak of 'Islamic literature', of 'Islamic art', of 'Islamic philosophy', even of 'Islamic despotism', but in such a sequence one is speaking less and less of something that expresses Islam as a faith.10

The solution suggested by Hodgson is that the term 'Islamic' be used for that which pertains to the religion, and that 'Islamicate' be used to describe the society and culture in which the Muslims and Islam are recognized as prevalent or socially dominant in some sense.

To describe something as Islamicate is not to indicate the geographical area of its origin, but to that which emerges from the complex of social relations in which Islam was or is prevalent, particularly the lettered traditions grounded in Arabic and Persian historically distinctive of societies of Muslim peoples, societies which included, of course, non-Muslims.

Thus, Maimonides may be called an Islamicate philosopher and a Jewish philosopher, but not an Islamic philosopher.

The remarks in the previous sections about the dialogue among civilizations were made under the assumption that among the civilizations for which dialogue has been prescribed, are those of the West and of Islam. When we speak of dialogue with the civilization of Islam, we are not speaking of the ideal society prescribed by the religion of Islam for man, but of what has actually evolved among Muslim peoples.

So, it would be better to speak of Islamicate civilization, in Hodgson's terminology, than of Islamic civilization. It is through dialogue among civilizations that Muslims may hope to transform contemporary Islamicate civilization into something more of an Islamic civilization, insha'Allah!

In closing, consider the observation of Hodgson:

Muslims are assured in the Qur'an, 'You have become the best community ever raised up for mankind, enjoining the right and forbidding the wrong, and having faith in God' (III, 110).Earnest men have taken this prophecy seriously to the point of trying to mould the history of the whole world in accordance with it.. Muslims have yet to implement the Qur'anic prophecy fully in all its implications. But they have perennially renewed their hopes and efforts to live the godly life not only as individuals but as a community. In every age, pious Muslims have reasserted their faith, in the light of new circumstances that have arisen out of the failures and also the successes of the past. The vision has never vanished, the venture has never been abandoned; these hopes and efforts are still vitally alive in the modern world. The history of Islam as a faith, and of the culture of which it has formed the core, derives its unity and its unique significance from that vision and that venture.11

Join Us

The Ahlul Bayt DILP operates through the collaborative effort of volunteers based in many countries around the world. Register with Al-Islam.org to collaborate in creating the World's largest Digital Islamic Library on the Internet.

Support Us

The Al-Islam.org site and the DILP are entirely supported by individual donors and well wishers. If you regularly visit this site and wish to show your appreciation, or if you wish to see further development of Al-Islam.org, please donate online.